


light a fire they can't put out

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (this gets better later but HOO BOY not at first), ... look, Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Child Abuse, Chronic Pain, Depression, Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Internalised ableism, Self-Esteem Issues, Suki Joins the Gaang Early, Toph joins the gaang early, Touch-Starved Zuko (Avatar), Zuko Joins The Gaang Early (Avatar), Zuko's Scar (Avatar), i'll add more character tags when they're actually here, it's a party - Freeform, its... its zuko, like really early, mute Zuko, no beta we die like lu ten, no one who has read anything ive written should be surprised at this point, super vague implications that lu ten was also probably autistic, will update tags as characters show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: Iroh accepts, mournfully, that it's going to be a long, long time before Zuko ever feels safe again.  If Zuko ever feels safe again.  Because of that, because Iroh thinks he already knows the reason for his nephew's silence, he doesn't look closer at just how quiet Zuko has been since waking.Iroh should have noticed.He wonders, later, if this, too, is his fault.  If something he said while his nephew was still drifting, barely aware of his surroundings, had struck deeper than he meant it to.  If even something as simple as a well-meantshh, Zuko, shhhad a hand in this.If Iroh had somehow taken his original mistake and deepened it, rather than trying to make up for it.(If this is the shape of the scar thatIrohleft on his nephew).
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Comments: 219
Kudos: 823





	1. your wild heart will live for younger days

**Author's Note:**

> listen ive been dealing with a whole lot of anger with no outlet and, i mean, theres a _real obvious_ character to project that on SO 
> 
> that ableism tag is bc neither iroh nor zuko is dealing so well at the beginning here. that child abuse tag is because hello, zuko here

The worst of it is how long it takes for any of them to realise. 

Maybe it's not so surprising, at first. Zuko spends his first several weeks still hazily in and out of consciousness, fighting the fever from the infection and coming far closer to losing than Iroh ever wants to think about. The healer takes him gently aside to warn him that his nephew will likely lose some to all of his hearing on that side, and as for his eyesight- if they're lucky, he might retain a sense of light and shadow in his left eye. If they're lucky. 

Zuko is so rarely lucky.

Zuko has insisted before that he's _never_ lucky, but Iroh is terrifyingly aware that if his nephew truly had no luck at all he would not have survived Ozai's blow. 

Iroh does not think that Zuko was _meant_ to survive, and once he's no longer spending every night camped out in Zuko's room with Healer Kou he instead starts spending too many of his nights in his own room staring blankly at his own meditation candles. He cannot safely retaliate against Ozai. Iroh was meant to be Fire Lord, once, and he'd held the siege at Ba Sing Se, once; Iroh will not be trusted to end the war, Iroh cannot be Fire Lord, and Zuko-

Zuko is too young. Zuko is too young and will be too young for years yet, but there is no one else. Ursa left Zuko but Iroh left Azula, and Azula will not get better left alone with Ozai.

(Ursa left them both. If Iroh has correctly worked through the information he's gleaned from his niece, Ursa left the night that Iroh's own father died. Azula's not a very solid source, but Zuko won't or can't talk about it, and when Iroh falls back on his old habit of eavesdropping on servants he finds that, unnervingly, for the first time he can remember they _aren't_ gossiping. These days they're barely speaking. 

But having seen now how willing Ozai was to maim his own son- how _eager-_ Iroh has an even worse feeling about what happened that night).

He left his niece behind, but Azula will _live,_ and Zuko- Zuko would not. Ozai would retrieve Azula, rather than let Iroh get away with taking her. He doesn't _care_ that Iroh has Zuko. Iroh lost one son and gained another, but he cannot stop being painfully aware that his gain is because Ozai does not value his son at all. 

Ozai has made that entirely too clear. 

He _would_ retrieve Azula. Iroh cannot risk taking her. Even if he could, she's become so much her father's daughter- Zuko is insensate and helpless when they leave, and he's frightened already of his little sister, and Iroh still fears to investigate the reasons for that too closely.

Zuko is lying unconscious in a room he won't recognise on a ship that's going to have be their home, because his father has barred him from the Fire Nation and nowhere else will be safe for the Fire Prince. The ship will _have_ to be home, because Ozai has left Zuko no other options. Iroh cannot bring himself to make the ship even that slightest bit less safe for his nephew.

Zuko's banishment won't matter to the Earth Kingdom or the Water Tribes. It will matter _too much_ to the Fire Nation. 

It would be a terrible act of disrespect, but... Iroh is not proud of it, but he does give serious consideration to whether they'd be able to make a home of one the old Air Temples instead. A hundred years on, they would likely not be the first, and Air Temples are not easy to get to. The ship can be made safe, but ships still have to make port. If anywhere else in the world might keep his nephew safe, an Air Temple might- but for two of the Fire Nation's royal line to take refuge in the temples that had not protected the Air Nomads _from_ the Fire Nation is-

That will have to be a last, desperate resort. 

But first, Zuko has to _wake up._

But when he does, Zuko is...

It isn't as though Iroh expected the boy to be well. No one had expected that. For too long they're not certain he'll wake up at all, and for even longer they're not certain just how much damage the fever will have caused. Firebenders may run hot but that doesn't always shield them from the lasting effects of a high fever. 

Iroh had never expected Zuko to wake up and be miraculously recovered, but Zuko seems to expect it of himself. Whenever he pushes himself only to falter, there's resentment and pain in his eyes ( _eye,_ they don't know yet just how badly damaged Zuko's still-bandaged eye might be), but there's guilt and shame and fear, too. Zuko doesn't say anything about it but then Iroh can't imagine that he would want to. 

Zuko seems to hate himself for not being any more of a miracle than he already is (Zuko doesn't seem to know how much of a miracle it is that he _survived_ ). He's always been a quiet child, although Iroh hadn't known that, initially, since Zuko had once been a chatterbox around Ursa and Iroh and Lu Ten. It had only been through listening in on servant's gossip, when the servants had still gossiped, that Iroh had learned Zuko's new reputation for silence and stealth. Those are two things Iroh had _not_ previously associated with his fiery nephew. 

Two things he does associate with scarred, scared soldiers.

Still. Zuko is quieter than he was before Lady Ursa had gone, but before this he had still felt safe enough around Iroh to be a little louder again.

Iroh accepts, mournfully, that it's going to be a long, long time before Zuko ever feels safe again. _If_ Zuko ever feels safe again. Because of that, because Iroh thinks he already knows the reason for his nephew's silence, he doesn't look closer at just _how_ quiet Zuko has been since waking. 

Iroh should have _noticed._

He wonders, later, if this, too, is his fault. If something he said while his nephew was still drifting, barely aware of his surroundings, had struck deeper than he meant it to. If even something as simple as a well-meant _shh, Zuko, shh_ had a hand in this. 

If Iroh had somehow taken his original mistake and deepened it, rather than trying to make up for it.

(If this is the shape of the scar that _Iroh_ left on his nephew).

He nearly cries when Zuko first manages to get out of bed on his own. 

He doesn't let any tears show, because he doesn't think his nephew will take it well, but it's a very close thing. The burn itself is bad enough; none of them had been sure exactly what harm the subsequent infection might have done, not even the royal healer that Iroh had maybe a little bit kidnapped on their way out of the palace. 

Not that Healer Kou had exactly objected to being kidnapped. The man's horror at Zuko's injury, and his determination to coax the prince as near to health as he could get him, had not gone unnoticed. Either the healer disappeared with Iroh, or he was likely to _be_ disappeared much more unpleasantly. 

Even without the prince's injury, it's never a bad idea to have a healer aboard a ship like theirs. _With_ Zuko's injury-

If he had not managed to bring Kou, Iroh would have had to find another healer, and quickly. 

Zuko does not manage to _stay_ out of bed long, those first days. He's still far too quiet, possibly still more than a little dazed from the fever and certainly a little drugged from the herbs and tea that keep the worst of the pain away, but his frustration at how quickly he grows unsteady is clear. 

At least, on the right side of his face it's clear. Beneath the bandages- there's no telling how clear an expression that half of his nephew's face will ever bear again. 

But what Iroh does not notice, then, is worse: that Zuko's evident frustration is always, always _silent.  
_

Lieutenant Jee is the first to notice. The Lieutenant is a rough man, and notably _not_ one of the crew that Iroh had quietly hand-picked himself from the Navy cast-offs that were all his nephew's ship could draw. Iroh has the sense that the Lieutenant, more than some of the others that he suspects his brother of sending along, deeply resents his post. 

But the man is rough, not heartless. 

He's also not afraid to draw the ire of a commanding officer (which is, most likely, how he ended up on this ship in the first place). He does not hesitate to approach Iroh with his concerns. 

He does not hesitate to ask if Zuko has spoken to Iroh yet.

Iroh swears and goes to find the healer. 

"No," Kou says, bewildered, when Iroh asks his question. "As far as I could tell you, there shouldn't be anything impeding his voice. Sometimes a high fever can cause hidden damage but if that were the case we should be seeing more signs of it. Even if that _were_ it, he-" Kou's eyes darken. "He still cries out in his sleep." 

Iroh thanks the healer and takes his leave and goes to his cabin to think. 

Outside of his nightmares, Zuko _hasn't_ said a word. Not to him and not, apparently, to anyone else.

Zuko has been quiet enough to worry Iroh on more than one occassion, but it's not often that Zuko has stopped speaking entirely, and then never for longer than a day or two. Those moods, too, have only ever been brought on by the boy's fear of his father's disapproval or disappointment-

Iroh's blood turns to ice. 

Because Ozai's disapproval _has_ sent his nephew silent before. 

How much worse will Ozai's _overt abuse-_ Ozai's _maiming_ of his own son, the son Iroh aches to claim for his own- how much worse will that have affected Zuko? 

Zuko, who is so desperate to please. Zuko, who _Iroh_ told to be silent at the war meeting. 

Zuko, who was burned and banished for _speaking out of turn.  
_

Who now isn't speaking at all. 

Iroh... does not know what to do. 

Healer Kou gives him a helpless, hopeless stare when he asks and finally says, tiredly, "All I can suggest is to give it time." 

When Iroh hesitates, when he feels his shoulders fall, Kou bites his lip and then says, softly, "It may- _may,_ mind you- be at least partly physical, and it may be something that will heal with time. Was the Prince- did he-" Kou's eyes drop to the floor, as if he can't stand to look directly into Iroh's eyes as he asks. "If he... inhaled a significant amount of smoke, then- then that could be the cause. A contributor, at least." 

Zuko would have inhaled smoke during the Agni Kai. (When he'd screamed. He'd screamed himself _hoarse,_ he'd lost his voice from screaming and pleading and sobbing and begging and-

His voice had given out; he'd still been screaming, but soundlessly. He'd _lost his voice_ but Iroh had never thought-

Those awful, animal screams of pain and terror can't be the last conscious sounds Iroh hears his nephew make. They _can't_ ).

Healer Kou says it could be from the fever after all.

Healer Kou says it could be emotional trauma. Zuko would have more than enough reason. 

Healer Kou says it could be that there was physical trauma to Zuko's vocal cords or throat or both- from the screaming, from the fire, from the smoke.

Healer Kou says it could be purely from smoke inhalation (from Zuko's own flesh, as it burned, as his father set him alight- Iroh has to leave the ship and find somewhere to stand and scream for a while, at that point).

It could be any combination of any number of causes. What it _can't_ be is easily cured. No matter the cause, they return again and again to their only option: give it time.

So Iroh gives it time, or he tries to. 

Their original chief engineer makes a loud remark to Lieutenant Jee one day about 'the prince's useless tongue.' He's left at the next port- quite by accident, of course. Their first and second cooks go much the same way. So does an ensign. More than a few lower-ranking crew members are mysteriously 'lost' on shore leave at one of the free ports. 

It's a higher number than Iroh would like, but a lower one than he'd feared. He is also, quite unexpectedly, not always the one to 'lose' those soldiers- Lieutenant Jee of all people returns from shore leave minus the two he'd left with and cites a bar fight as his only explanation, and eventually it transpires that the ensign was very deliberately given an incorrect departure time by their new engineer. As Iroh had been forced by haste to choose a crew based more on potential disloyalty to Ozai than on loyalty to himself, this is a far better sign than he'd dared hope for. 

Zuko continues to say nothing. Even when he overhears pointed comments about his eye or ear or face or _voice,_ he scowls and says _nothing_ and Iroh is, privately, terrified. He knows the derision and insults upset Zuko. He _knows_ they do. Iroh had initially been waiting unhappily for Zuko to recover enough to start snapping back, because while snapping likely wouldn't win him any points from the crew it would at least reassure Iroh that his nephew has fire in him still.

(Zuko also hasn't firebent since waking up, but to be honest no one expects him to. He will again eventually- he _is_ a firebender, and all benders need to bend their elements just as they need to eat and drink to survive- but it will likely take some time, and his fire will certainly never be the same as it was).

The crew shifts and settles as Iroh and Jee and Kou 'lose' some of them and 'recruit' others (Kou is not the last of them to be helpfully-kidnapped) and slowly it becomes glaringly obvious to Iroh that no one _else_ is really certain what to do with the prince, either. Anyone that Ozai had sent was probably meant to resent him, and they all might have at that, if Zuko were able to yell at them the way he probably wants to. He's the prince and they can't yell at him back, but he's thirteen and no one appreciates a thirteen year old attempting to exercise power over them. 

Except that Zuko can't start yelling in the first place, and he _is_ thirteen, and instead of finding themselves under the command of a spoiled prince the crew finds themselves floundering in the much _less_ expected position of feeling responsible for a scarred, silent, _frightened_ child. It's likely none of them were prepared to learn just how scared and anxious their prince actually is, just as they were not prepared to be so baldly confronted with the fact that Zuko is a child. 

And in the aching absence of both Zuko's voice and his fire, Iroh sees at last just how much fear his nephew had been hiding behind both. 

Iroh sees. So do Jee and Kou. So does the rest of their crew, the ones who haven't been abandoned at some port or beach- or 'lost' at sea, in one particularly nasty case, because it's turned out that in the face of someone who thinks to take advantage of Zuko's silence, Iroh is not the only one who feels no guilt in taking a page from the Water Tribe.

Zuko must notice their increasing attention to and affection for him, even if he proves to be incapable of acknowledging it in any _normal_ way. Iroh rather doubts that particular inability is at all related to his nephew's new voicelessness. Iroh sees it now- the way any hint of true kindness makes Zuko shy back, wary and mistrusting, reminding them all far too strongly of a kicked pygmy puma. 

Iroh wishes he'd seen it sooner, when Zuko had at least seemed to trust _Iroh's_ kindness. 

Because he's not sure that Zuko does, anymore. He almost asks, once, but he sees the way Zuko's hands grip tightly around his teacup, the way Zuko watches him from the corner of his eye as best as he can when Iroh tries to work on firebending with him. Then on firebending meditation, when it becomes clear that Zuko won't be up to producing his own flames any time soon.

Then just on meditation. 

Iroh fights hard to hide how unnerving it is that his nephew no longer feels like a bender at all. A loss of control isn't surprising. A loss of confidence is inevitable. A need to retreat to firebending basics to build back both is to be expected. Zuko's not the only one to shy from his own flames after suffering a burn; it's rare, because firebenders don't burn easy, but it happens. 

In all his years Iroh has never seen a firebender survive a scar as bad as Zuko's. Iroh has never seen a firebender scar as badly as Zuko, because firebenders _don't_ burn easy. This total loss of any signs of firebending _is_ unexpected, but maybe it shouldn't be, with so severe a burn.

Iroh is honestly more concerned that Zuko so clearly doesn't know how to respond to kindness. Iroh had not been completely confident his nephew could still recognise true kindness, but reassuringly, Zuko _does_ respond. 

He reacts more like a stray firefox bringing home burnt scraps in hope of praise than he does like a scarred child, but he reacts. 

Zuko brings Iroh and then Lieutenant Jee maps (where is he getting these maps) with destinations and courses plotted out (how is he determining courses) and brings the engineers new tools when they've broken what they have (Iroh's been trying his hardest to keep Zuko safely on the ship, how does he keep getting _off_ of it). 

So far Zuko hasn't come slinking home from any unapproved 'shopping' trips to drop prey at Iroh's feet, but Iroh can no longer honestly say he'd be surprised. He's not sure, because it hurts to think too much about exactly why Zuko's felt the need to start playing an elaborate game of fetch in return for basic kindness, but he thinks if Zuko ever did bring back prey Iroh _would_ immediately praise him. 

That tendency to chase after small rodents and lizards is often an early mark of a firebender. Most firebenders don't consciously remember their hunting instincts once they've started bending.

It's uncharitable to think that Zuko's started hunting again because he's stopped bending, or even to think that it's because of his injuries. His nephew is quiet and hurt, not _feral._ Zuko has never been that kind of hunter in the first place. He would bring animals home to play with, not to hunt. _Azula_ had hunted more traditionally, but then, if Iroh has understood correctly then their father had rather viciously encouraged that behaviour. At least his niece had mostly stuck to pests like vole-rats and not moved on to servant's or noble's pets. 

Zuko had not chased vole-rats. Zuko had not chased rodents and lizards. 

Ursa had had to pull Zuko away from the messenger hawks. Ursa had to pull Zuko away from the _komodo rhinos._ It had worked, and maybe it had worked too well, Zuko is more attached to animals of all kinds now than even Lu Ten ever was, but Iroh has also seen pygmy pumas try to play with Zuko like he was one of their kittens. (Zuko had just been delighted to play). 

That prey instinct usually goes dormant once a firebender calls their first flames, so although Zuko's had been a little wilder than expected it hadn't been anything to worry about, really. Iroh's told his own had been like that, too, and Ursa had always insisted it's common in her line and Azula had seemed proof enough of that. 

Usually the firebender in question starts bending much earlier than Zuko had. 

Usually it's safe for them to _let_ that prey drive lapse. 

Now, Iroh watches his nephew slip back onto the ship in the dead of night, tread silent in a way it really shouldn't be, and wonders if Zuko's had ever really lessened at all. If maybe he'd just gotten better at hiding it. If maybe Ozai is more aware of this trait in his son than he's let on, considering just how hard Zuko latches onto the idea of chasing down the Avatar. Bad enough that this Avatar hunt is causing Zuko to cling to that fleeting, fragile hope that he can do something, that there is _anything_ that will make his father love him- even worse if his father is using Zuko's own injured instincts against him. 

Zuko wouldn't still feel the need to hunt if he felt safe. Zuko's clearly resuming an old habit, not starting a new one. 

Zuko is still struggling to communicate without a voice, and this isn't going to help. 

He's _learning_ to communicate, and quickly, and Iroh is so proud of him that he aches with it, but it's clear that Zuko doesn't feel like it's enough. Zuko sneaks on and off the ship with a stealth he shouldn't have and takes to grim practise first with the dao Iroh had brought for him, and then with daggers once the engineers catch on that Zuko both has a dagger and has not yet been trained with it. Iroh's not sure he should be _letting_ the engineers train Zuko, because their collective style of combat seems more in place in a bar fight than it seems like something a prince should know, but- 

Zuko stops scowling for the first time when he finally starts scoring hits on Satori, who grins like a leopard-shark and immediately starts teaching the prince dirty tricks as her partner calls out corrections and 'helpful' advice. (Iroh's relatively certain Ayane was not part of their initial crew. Iroh's chosen to overlook that information in Ayane's case). 

Iroh folds his hands into his sleeves and watches without interfering. 

And tries not to worry that evidently, _both_ their engineers are more than a little feral themselves.

He actually _does_ worry less when he realises that Satori and Ayane are some of the best they have at finding discreet ways to include Zuko in their conversations. If that means Zuko also learns a lot about some very improper knife fighting and only marginally less about the inner workings of his ship, well, those are skills that can only help him in the end.

He does still struggle to communicate, though, even with that unlooked-for positive influence. Zuko scowls and snaps and snarls soundlessly, and grits his teeth every time he catches any of his crew looking at him with-

He probably thinks it's pity. 

Iroh's not sure that his nephew's ever learned to recognise _sympathy._

The crew accepts Zuko's clumsy gifts just as readily as Iroh does. Iroh hadn't actually expected that, but he starts to catch the proud looks when his nephew spars on the deck, the uneasy whispers when he flinches in the corridors. 

The soldiers on the ship are not, for the most part, good soldiers. They're all here for their own reasons, and even Iroh doesn't know all of them. As Ayane and Jee prove, Iroh's not even the one responsible for some of them being here at all. 

But just because they didn't make good soldiers doesn't mean they aren't good _people.  
_

And, to Iroh's surprise and relief, in small groups and large ones and individually they all do begin to show their loyalty- to the prince. To _Zuko._

Satori exclaims her delight so loudly when Zuko brings her a part she's needed that she draws a crowd that Zuko, red-faced and with his shoulders hunched around his ears, only has to take two steps back from before it mysteriously disperses. Lieutenant Jee detours when he sees the prince on deck to ask if he thinks the weather will hold or if they should consider a different course and he always, always manages to phrase his questions for yes or no answers. Healer Kou, unprompted, explains every aspect of the medications and treatments Zuko has to go to him for in intent detail, to the point of teaching Zuko how to prepare medication himself. 

Iroh had hoped when he'd tried to pick what crew he could that they would tolerate his nephew even if he began lashing out. A crew that's swiftly growing attached is more than he'd ever dreamed they'd have.

They accept Zuko's clumsy gifts with delight. They learn quickly when it's wisest to back off. They follow Zuko's maps and course corrections, because it isn't like any of them have anywhere better to be or they wouldn't be on the ship at all. Save for Ozai's spies, that is, but of the actual spies one was abandoned in a shady port town before Zuko even woke up and one was Jee, who'd defected possibly before he'd ever boarded. 

It's not a perfect solution. Zuko's fists still clench in frustration every time a lead comes up empty. He still glares at the ground with his good eye every time one of the crew says something meant to be reassuring. Iroh has the sense that Zuko _would_ be yelling at them all if he only could, but his nephew settles for a glare and a growl, and with half his face set in a permanent glower once the bandages finally come off he perfects that expression quickly. 

(When the bandages had come off, Zuko had made the same odd gesture several times while staring at Iroh with his jaw set tightly, an expression that Iroh fears hurts him to make, and it had taken too long to realise that Zuko was demanding a mirror.

Zuko had stared at the mirror for even longer, his hand raising to his scar repeatedly before he'd forced it down, knowing better than to touch. When he cried, he flinched, and Iroh aches when he realises that Zuko hurts when he cries, too). 

Zuko has never been any good at hiding his feelings, which makes it jarring that Iroh now sometimes has trouble knowing just what he feels about the course their lives have taken. 

Anger, definitely. Fear, certainly. Shame and guilt, as much as Iroh wishes otherwise.

Relief, when he starts to learn that raised voices are not always aimed at him, are not always a bad thing. Confusion, when he braces for blows that never come. Hope, flaring and dying and flaring and dying with each new hint or clue or spark, and it pains Iroh that it is his nephew's _hope_ that seems to hurt him the most.

Iroh still spends more time with Zuko than anyone else does, partly out of necessity and partly because he thinks Zuko _needs_ that reassurance more than the boy will likely ever be willing- or able- to admit. Zuko doesn't speak even when they're alone, not anymore, certainly not the way he'd come to Iroh and chatter brightly when they were still in the palace. Zuko has never been terribly talkative, but Iroh hadn't known that until he'd overheard it, because Zuko has always talked to _him._

Zuko _had_ always talked to him. 

Now Zuko scowls at Iroh when he invites him to play pai sho, and Zuko will hiss under his breath and glare when Iroh proposes a plan he disagrees with, and Zuko will growl when Iroh accidentally pushes him too far

(and he'll _whimper,_ his one good eye flinching shut, if Iroh moves too fast or too wrong or too close to his face)

but he still hasn't said a word. 

It's not until they're weeks out from the Western Air Temple (a disappointment all its own) that Iroh actually catches Zuko _trying._

Iroh is careful, careful not to slip further into the doorway, careful to freeze and do his best to melt into the shadows of the walls the way he's now seen Zuko do so effortlessly and so often.

Zuko's bed is piled with not only his own Navy-issue bedding, but also the various blankets and pillows that Iroh has gathered slowly from various ports, helped along by a surprising number of the crew. The blankets are still mostly red, but there are flashes of green and blue now too, shoved deep into the rest of the pile like Zuko still feels the need to hide anything about him that might not be as much _Fire_ as his father demands. One blanket is a vivid orange, which Iroh's fairly certain is either Kou or Ayane's fault, and Iroh's grateful for it because it tends to end up more visible than the blue or green- it may not be red either, but it's an easier colour to pretend with and that means Zuko is less afraid to use it. 

The ship's bunks are all cold metal, and the standard Navy blankets are thin. Zuko's used to a palace bedroom. Zuko is _thirteen_ and not yet healed from an injury that came terrifyingly close to killing him. 

Iroh's not certain that Zuko's realised just how close he'd been to death. Burns are so very highly prone to infection, and a burn over the face, over an _eye,_ over-

Iroh can't actually think about just how extensive his nephew's injury is without his hands starting to shake with rage and guilt and fear. 

It had been more difficult to avoid infection, with the burn being- where it is. The size it is. Even Kou admits that the infection and subsequent fever were all but inevitable. 

The fever could have been the cause of Zuko's silence. Iroh remembers that, as he stays very still and sees the way his nephew's throat works, and his mouth moves, and his words don't come. Zuko shuts his eyes and tries harder, straining, tiny huffs of displaced air emerging in place of speech, and the soft whine that finally rises from him makes him flinch back hard against the bed and the wall. 

He's placed himself in the corner, Iroh notes slowly. Protected on two sides by the ship's metal walls, but also close to the porthole. 

He wonders uneasily if Zuko would feel safer staying in an Air Temple after all. 

Slowly, Zuko uncurls, though his fists clench and unclench. He takes a deep, deep breath and lets it out slowly and the hairs on the back of Iroh's neck raise as none of the fires in his nephew's room show any sign of response. 

Zuko reaches under his pillow and pulls out a familiar knife. Iroh's gut clenches and he almost steps into the room right then, but Zuko only studies the blade- studies the writing on the blade- and then sets it at his side.

His mouth moves silently as he starts to try again. 

Just as silently, Iroh backs away. He's no longer sure what it was he came to fetch Zuko for; it doesn't seem important in the light of what he's just seen. 

He doesn't know what to do. 

He can't fix this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally kous name was just because i was pulling names from persona 4 (let me be) and then i looked up the possible meanings for kou and it... really REALLY fits. tho i mean, in-universe we are just assuming kous parents didnt like, _like_ him bc i mean... koh. ayane is also named for a p4 character, while satori is named for the lord of the mountain in breath of the wild bc why not, really 
> 
> yes it is another mute au listen ive got speech issues and did not so much actually finish speech therapy as hit a point where they were like 'yeah theres just nowhere to go from here' and ALL THOSE SPEECH issues have been yanked riiight back up over the past few months bc i am NOT real audible thru a mask (i have carried a whistle for several years now i am in my THIRTIES but well. ive had to yell for help before and _it did not go well_ ) 
> 
> title is from aviici's the nights, chapter titles likely will be as well 
> 
> this is gonna be about the whole gaang, im just not adding most of the tags til theyre. actually here


	2. think of me if ever you're afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *points wildly at the 'internalised ableism' tag* _that is extremely relevant_ please take care of yourselves, do not be like zuko
> 
> also a warning for sort-of-intentional self-harm- you can jump down to the end notes for details if you don't want any spoilers- and panic attacks, but there's, uh, likely to be panic attacks from more than one pov character in this fic. like. often. and zuko is arguably low-key having one about, oh, this entire time.

Zuko eavesdrops on his uncle and his healer every chance he gets. He thinks they know, but they never call him on it, so he keeps doing it.

He does a lot of eavesdropping in general, these days.

There's not a whole lot else he _can_ do.

Zuko's fists clench every time he's reminded that he's _useless_ now, and it only hurts worse that there's never any accompanying spark to his fury. He can't get away from the constant reminders that he's been burned and banished and- and broken. They seethe and sink into the back of his mind, right alongside that cold, numbing knowledge that he can't do _anything_ anymore. Can't firebend right, can't see or hear right, can't even _say anything_ even though that's so _stupid,_ that should be easy, so why can't he just _do_ it-

He couldn't even stop being such a _failure_ long enough to (keep his _mouth shut_ ) get through his first war meeting. And that was _before_ he woke up all ( _maimed_ ) damaged. 

He can't even talk to Uncle about it. He's not really sure he could have anyway, but he's lost even the ability to try. 

(And Uncle _told him_ not to talk, Uncle tried to warn him, Zuko should have listened but instead he proved all his old tutors right. He _is_ that stupid. Zuko should have known better, should have _been_ better, but no matter how hard he tries he can never quite manage to do anything _right_ ). 

Zuko's anger burns out quickly those first days, smothered into resentful ash and embers the same as his fire. That sullen fury never goes away entirely but it makes space all too frequently for shame and fear and an emotion he'd refused at first to acknowledge as _grief.  
_

It's stupid, that he's grieving. No one's dead. No one's gone. Zuko shouldn't feel like this, shouldn't have this same hollow, scraped out feeling that had seized him for months after Lu Ten died and Mom disappeared. No one's dead, no one has stolen away in the night-

\- except for _him,_ but he didn't, really, he wasn't even conscious-

\- he wasn't even _conscious_ and Father _threw him_ _away-  
_

Zuko shoves that thought down and away as fast as he can, nerves alight with emotions too tangled and raw to identify, to want to identify. He visualises a blast of fire following after and never _mind_ that he's yet to produce any real fire at all, much less a concentrated blast. Uncle hasn't said anything about it but Zuko is humiliatingly sure that he's ( _judging_ ) noticed.

After all, all the crew that _have_ commented on Zuko's lack of firebending- or on his scar, or on his _voice-_ have been mysteriously 'forgotten' at various supply stops. When they weren't in need of supplies.

Uncle obviously doesn't think Zuko's made the connection.

Uncle obviously doesn't think much of Zuko at all, now. 

(but he's _here_ )

Zuko isn't, can't be, Lu Ten and he knows, he _knows,_ that it isn't _him_ that Uncle is thinking of when he buys extra blankets or goes out of his way to find Fire Nation food at a coastal colony. He knows, because it was Lu Ten that loved and marvelled over the different feelings of different fabrics (and maybe Zuko had a little, too, when Lu Ten had first shown him to run his palm over different blankets to feel the changes in the cloth, when Lu Ten had helped to surreptitiously switch out Zuko's own bedding for a softer set that looked the same but didn't _scratch_ \- but Uncle doesn't know about that, nobody does). It was Lu Ten who loved char siu bao, who liked his fire flakes only moderately spicy instead of as hot as possible (but then Zuko's throat can't stand much beyond mild now, anyway).

Zuko isn't Lu Ten. He isn't Uncle's son.

(But sometimes, shamefully, he _wishes_ he was. Uncle would never- never-

He _wouldn't._ He wouldn't.

... he'd _told_ Zuko not to speak.So- so Zuko had disrespected him, too). 

Healer Kou doesn't know why Zuko can't speak any more than Zuko does. The healer lists reasons for his uncle, quietly, as if everyone aboard doesn't already _know_ that Zuko's- silent, now- and Zuko has to turn his head to hear, because his burned ear doesn't hear very well anymore.

At least it _does_ hear.

(He's blind in that eye now, he was so scared the first time he took the bandages off and- he hadn't realised how hard he'd still been hoping until his vision didn't clear).

The healer's list of reasons is a long one. Kou doesn't know which or how many of them could be right. _Zuko_ doesn't know, and it's _his_ voice.

Was.

 _Was_ his voice.

He's tried. He still tries, because he never has known when to quit. He doesn't sleep much anyway, not when he lurches awake at the slightest sound and his heart always takes _so long_ to slow from rabbit-squirrel quick back to its normal rate. Now, whenever he startles awake he hauls himself up and into the corner where his brain hovers between _safe_ and _trapped_ and tries to see if any of his roiling emotions can force a sound from his aching throat.

They haven't yet. They never do. 

Zuko tries and tries and _tries,_ fails over and over again and tries harder, and then tries to ignore the sick pounding of his heart and the way he has to keep swallowing around the awful lump in his throat. Trying is terrifying. Failing is terrifying. Failing is _worse_ but even just the trying hurts. 

Zuko tries to speak and his hands shake and his throat starts to close so tightly that it threatens to take his breath from him, too, and he- can't. He can't. Even just trying to think of what he _should_ say is enough to make him huddle in on himself, alternately too hot and too cold, because even though he's in his own cabin and he's alone and it's the middle of the _night_ he can't stop the scared way his thoughts turn immediately to _but what if someone hears._ Which is dumb, because so _what_ if someone hears him, someone hearing him is the _whole point-_

Someone hearing him is terrifying, too. 

Mom's gone and Lu Ten's gone and almost no one else has ever wanted to hear anything Zuko has to say. He doesn't think Ty Lee counts because she likes everything and everyone, and he doesn't think Mai counts because Zuko's always been too afraid that he annoys Mai and he just doesn't know how to _tell,_ and the only person left is _Uncle-_

Zuko's breath stutters. His shoulders slump as he buries his hands into the thick blankets piled atop his bunk and shuts his eyes, holds himself as still as possible and feeling like he's moments from vibrating out of his skin anyway. He tries to breathe more normally but the candles don't breathe _with_ him and it keeps knocking him off balance all over again. 

He seriously doubts Uncle wants to hear much of anything from him. 

(It took him three days to learn that Uncle isn't banished, too. That Zuko didn't _get_ Uncle banished alongside him because Zuko never knows when to _shut up,_ even with Uncle's explicit instructions. He wishes he could be relieved, but Uncle is still here with Zuko instead of retiring back home like he deserves and the relief is overrun with guilt and fear and reflexive anger, instead).

Zuko can't even tell Uncle Iroh that he's sorry, that he didn't mean to (he never means to), that he'll never do it again (he probably will, though, he's never been very good at thinking ahead). He genuinely is sorry (Agni he's so so _sorry_ ) but he's not really certain that he'd be able to say that even if he _could_ still speak. He's so sorry but there's still an underlying anger-born-of-fear in that thought, because- because- 

Because he still doesn't think that he was _wrong.  
_

He doesn't understand why no one else had spoken up and there must be something wrong with him, there must be, because no one else had protested that stupid awful plan and they're adults and generals and _war heroes_ and _none of them had said anything._ Zuko doesn't _understand.  
_

He's always been so (s _tupid)_ bad at understanding people. He wishes they would just say what they mean, like Lu Ten always had, but they _don't_ and he _never_ understands in time. If he ever understands at all. 

Maybe Uncle Iroh had just been waiting his chance to do that _thing_ he does where he changes someone's mind and makes them think it was what they intended all along. Maybe another general would have spoken out against the plan next. 

Maybe Zuko _is_ the one who's wrong and he's just not smart enough to understand _why_. 

None of them had said anything. 

He'll never know if any of them would have. 

* * *

Zuko curls in tighter on himself and tries again to speak. 

He's overheard Healer Kou say that he cries out in his sleep. Despite the way just knowing that makes Zuko flush hot with shame _,_ he wishes he could ask if it's ever in words. 

Nothing else ever is. Not only has his fire deserted him, so have his _words,_ and some days the grief he feels at all he's lost flashes right back into red-hot anger and then has nowhere to _go_ because he still can't spark or shout. He's still just as angry (just as hurt) but the anger snarls uselessly inside him, left without an outlet, left him feeling like he's burning from the inside out. 

It takes him about two days to start trying to goad the crew into sparring with him. 

The crew does _not_ need goaded. Zuko's not very sure how he feels about this. At least he's not the only one...?

If he didn't have Uncle's knife, Zuko genuinely thinks he would have gone for someone with just his fists- or possibly his _teeth_ , with the way he's felt since he's woken up. 

(He can't stop himself _hunting_ whenever he's on land long enough and it's more luck than anything when he discovers he can satisfy that urge by hunting down things like maps and supplies and information, too).

There's an engineer, the first he brought a replacement part to, who is utterly, _viciously_ delighted to discover just how badly Zuko needs to fight. Satori immediately teaches him every dirty knife trick she knows and then promptly invites him to start inventing more. Mai would love her. Zuko thinks he might be a little in love himself. 

Uncle seems less thrilled, but he doesn't stop them.

He does buy more knives when Satori's start to accumulate damage.

Zuko stays away from the new knives for days while he waits anxiously for Uncle to tell him off for playing with steel instead of practising with fire, but Uncle... never does.

* * *

Zuko is at least gradually finding that he can still make _some_ noises, but they're- it's not great. He can growl and hiss and snarl.

The first time he catches himself using a movement like he's swiping claws at Lieutenant Jee to emphasize his angry hiss, Zuko feels his unscarred cheek redden in shame as he falls back and then flees to the dubious safety of his room.

Zuko can growl and hiss and snarl, all right. He can swipe at people with his fireless hands and sleep with Uncle's knife under his pillow, because Zuko remembers every assassin he's ever encountered and he doesn't have guards anymore and he doesn't have _flames_ anymore.

Sparring with Satori and Ayane helps, it helps a _lot,_ but it's still hard to hide the relief he feels at having his dao with them. He likes learning knives, but his swords are an old, old comfort. 

His new teachers are nothing like Piandao, but they're still rapidly becoming some of his favourite teachers. Zuko's never known anyone quite like the two engineers before, and he likes learning from them in a way he's only ever experienced with Piandao before, and for only the second time Zuko can ever remember he's _eager_ to see his teachers. 

(Even if he's not totally sure he'd tell them that he's started to think of them like that, even if he could). 

They don't treat him like he's fragile- far from it- but they don't strike when he's not looking, either, and Ayane teaches him to work _around_ his blind side without ever actually saying a word about it, and Satori's taken to tossing a knife to him whenever they cross paths so that they've sparred everywhere from the deck to the halls to the boiler room. Which was a little insane and definitely dangerous and Zuko is _never_ letting Uncle find out about it, but he sort of loved actually _having_ the fight. Satori and Ayane force him to be creative in a way he hasn't been (allowed to be) since his last lessons with Piandao. 

And if they were days out of the Fire Nation by the time they even reached the port Ayane had first stepped aboard at, and if her eyes look a whole lot more green than gold, and if the roots of her hair start to show once they've been at sea a while- well, it's not like they're gonna be worried about _Zuko_ telling anyone, but he wishes he could tell them that he wouldn't anyway. 

He's even mostly stopped cringing away when he slips up during training. Zuko figures it's a _spar,_ so of _course_ they're going to hit him, but then they- they hardly ever even hit hard enough to leave _marks_. For the first few days he'd wanted to snap at them for coddling him, but then they start sparring with each other and their hawker and their cook and their armourer too, and slowly Zuko begins to realise that they _all_ spar like that. There's a handful of times where someone misjudges distance or forgets to account for the ship's movement and it results in minor stabs or slices, but those are inevitably brought directly to Healer Kou, who might sigh and roll his eyes but who always treats them without any real hint of scolding or displeasure. 

The hawker and cook and armourer and then most of the rest of the crew also get in on the spontaneous hallway spars. There are _so many knives_ aboard this ship, Zuko's pretty sure most of his crew are delinquents at _best_ but- but he thinks he _likes_ them. He didn't like the way they don't treat him much like a prince at first but- but he-

He thinks he likes the way they _do_ treat him better.

He still can't quite stop waiting warily for a fight to go too far, for someone to- to _slip_ and _forget_ to pull their blade in time (Zuko had had a swordsmaster after Piandao, but not for long), or to let their bending loose, or-

Zuko's not even sure what he's waiting _for._

He watches and wonders and then, finally, does something that gets Uncle visibly mad at him for the first time since Zuko had first woken to a duller, quieter world. 

Zuko can tell Satori's feinting- she doesn't have as many tells as Ayane does, but she does _have_ them, and the way she's shifting her weight is all wrong for the strike she's trying hard to telegraph. So. Zuko knows she's feinting. He knows approximately where she's going to _really_ strike instead. 

He steps into it, instead of dodging. 

The resulting slice isn't all that bad. It stings, a little (Zuko might have said it burned a little, once, but he's never going to use the word the same way again). It's in kind of an awkward spot, because he didn't dodge, because he stepped into it and not away, because he didn't try to block the blow. Blood trickles sluggishly from his upper arm, the cut itself at an odd angle because Satori had tried to pull back fast the moment she realised he wasn't getting out of the way. 

Satori's knife clatters to the deck and moments later Zuko does find himself flinching, bringing his arms in close against his chest and struggling to keep his breathing even, but it's not because of the wound. 

Because the pain of the cut doesn't even really register properly, not against the newly permanent background of the hurt in his _face,_ but Satori's sudden shout of "General Iroh!" nearly sends Zuko to his knees. He just barely manages to keep himself upright, but only by how utterly terrifying the thought of kneeling before an angry family member is. 

And Uncle _is_ angry. His eyes flash with steel as he strides closer to Zuko's trembling form and reaches for his injured arm. 

This time Zuko flinches so badly that his boot knocks against the discarded knife, sending it skittering across the deck. 

Zuko trembles harder and reminds himself harshly that he _wanted_ to do this, that it's better to know what Uncle will do _now_ than it is to lay awake and wonder and then he tries hard to hide the jolt that goes through him as he realises that _that's_ what he was waiting for. For Uncle Iroh to react.

For Uncle Iroh to get _angry_ with him.

Zuko does not- _can_ not- duck his head, nor can he stop shaking, but he braces himself all the same.

Uncle Iroh retracts his arm like he's the one who's been struck, the anger draining out of his expression in an instant to be replaced with... something else. Something Zuko only hazily remembers and can't recognise at all.

"Get Healer Kou," Iroh says to Satori, quietly. When the engineer turns to do as instructed, Uncle adds, just as quiet, "You may wish to retrieve your knife first. Tell the healer I do _not_ consider either of you at fault, but it may help him to know that it was that serrated edge that Ayane so favours."

White-faced, Satori nods, then flees.

Uncle turns to Zuko, who takes an involuntary step back despite himself.

Uncle doesn't _look_ angry any more. Zuko knows better than to think that means he _isn't._

"Prince Zuko," Iroh attempts, but Zuko's eyes are locked on Uncle's hands, which are raising slowly, and he can't tear them away. "Zuko, what, exactly-" 

Uncle sighs, pauses, and very obviously reworks whatever it is he was about to say. 

Zuko can't stop watching Iroh's hands. He doesn't hear Iroh's words. 

The moment Uncle's hands rise above his waist, Zuko's resolve breaks completely. 

He stumbles backwards, suddenly frantic in a way he's never felt in front of Uncle, arms raised defensively and tongue feeling thick and useless as he struggles to speak, to yell or plead or beg, he doesn't _know_. Broken, stilted gasps and bitten-off whimpers spill from him instead of words, because all his words are gone and Zuko can't admit it but he's so scared that they're _never_ coming back, that this is all he has, now, and it won't be enough, can never be enough, Zuko already _wasn't enough_ and that was when he was _whole-_

Uncle's arms wrap around him, holding tight, and don't let go even when Zuko flinches a third time. Zuko can't stop shaking and Uncle has to know, can't possibly miss it with the way he's holding him, and Zuko forces his eyes shut and waits for the reprimand, for the shouting, for the burn. 

"Oh, _Zuko,"_ Iroh murmurs, before he sinks down to sit on the deck, bringing Zuko with him. "I don't-" Again, Iroh pauses, choosing his words carefully. "You are not in trouble, nephew." 

Zuko stills. 

"You are _not_ in trouble," Uncle repeats, more firmly, one hand sliding up Zuko's back to gently tilt his head up until Iroh can meet his eyes. Zuko can't hold eye contact, but Iroh seems satisfied with whatever it is he sees. "Nor is Satori, or Ayane, for that matter, or anyone, at all. Mistakes are only an opportunity to try again, nephew, and I am sorry that I had not thought to teach you that." 

Zuko keeps his injured arm still, but his other hand involuntarily twists into Uncle's sleeve. Uncle does not disentangle it.

"I-" Uncle hesitates, again, and Zuko tries as hard as he can not to tense but he probably fails. He's gone too numb to tell. Feeling overwhelmed does that to him, sometimes, and since Zuko knows better than to let anyone know it happens at all he's never gotten a chance to know it if happens to anyone else. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's just him. Maybe it's just yet another way he's broken. 

Uncle's hands are warm and gentle and his arms around Zuko seem meant to comfort, rather than to confine. Zuko still twitches a little whenever Uncle moves, still fearful of the moment that warmth turns to heat and comfort to constriction, but even as confused as he is Zuko can't help but lean in to Uncle's touch. Even if it won't last, it's something he hadn't known before that he'd been craving, badly, and he wants to try and hold onto this feeling as long as he can. 

The hand cradling Zuko's head retreats quickly when he shivers. The hand on his back begins to rub small, soothing circles. 

"Zuko," Iroh tries again, and the worry in his voice forces Zuko to dart a swift glance up at him. In that brief glimpse Uncle looks sad more than anything else, but his next words dispel that notion and make Zuko all too aware of his pounding heart again. "Zuko, _nephew,_ I am- I will not lie to you, Zuko. You are truly not in trouble, but I _am_ angry, and I am angry with you."

Instinctively, Zuko tries to curl in on himself, tries to shield himself even though that never makes anything better. Never helps. Nothing ever helps.

Uncle's arms don't let him get that far. Zuko shudders again and then goes still, tries to go limp so that it won't hurt as much-

Uncle shakes him, but very, very gently, careful not to aggravate the new slice in his arm or his still healing face. " _Nephew._ I _am_ angry, because you put yourself in harm's way _deliberately_ and that is enough to take a few years of an old man's life, but _I will never hurt you._ Not- not intentionally." 

Zuko doesn't want to meet his uncle's eyes, because if he doesn't maybe he can try to trust the lie for a bit and maybe he'll be able to feel safe for a little while or at least to _remember_ what it feels like to feel safe. He doesn't raise his head, or nod, or really do anything to acknowledge Uncle's words.

"Zuko, I will _not_ hurt you," Uncle repeats, softly, and slowly Zuko becomes aware that not all of the rocking motion beneath them is the ship. Uncle is rocking them both back and forth, like Mom had, once, like Zuko is a _child,_ and they're on the deck in full view of the crew. The crew that's supposed to be under his command. 

The crew that _isn't,_ because Zuko can't _give_ commands, but they're still _his crew.  
_

He already can't command them but it hits him like a blow that if any of them have ever respected him at all, he's lost that now, too. 

"Accidents can, and will, happen," Iroh is saying, firmly, but Zuko is beginning to lose his breath again. "But I will _not_ ever strike or burn you with intent, nephew, nor will any of your crew." 

Maybe not before, but that was before Zuko let himself be held and comforted where they can all see him, before he let himself be _weak._

He tries to tug out of Iroh's grasp. 

Iroh does not let him.

"We will wait for the healer," Uncle says, voice low, and his eyes shift from the cut to the ruined side of his face and back again in a way that makes Zuko very uneasy.

It's only once Kou arrives and, after some disgruntled muttering that makes Zuko flinch again, starts to stitch up Zuko's arm (it's a deeper cut than he'd realised) that Zuko works out that they think his balance is off. They're not really wrong, but Zuko's been learning to compensate for it as fast as he can because he can't afford _not_ to. It's not a factor here. 

And Uncle already told Zuko that he knows it was deliberate. He _knows_ it's not Zuko's balance that did it. 

He still lets Kou make it sound like it is, like Zuko _hadn't_ stepped in front of a knife on purpose just to test his crew and his uncle's limits. 

Kou finishes with his sutures and sternly tells Zuko to stay away from sparring for the next week. 

"I would make it two," Kou says flatly, when Zuko's frustrated gaze snaps up to him. "If I thought you would listen." 

Zuko fights the flinch in time and resolves to go the full two weeks. 

The first thing he does when he returns to his cabin is still to immediately get his dao situated where he can easily reach them. He breathes easier for it even as he tries to ignore the remembered sting of ' _real_ firebenders don't need steel, you know.'

His crew is clearly very fond of all kinds of assorted weaponry.

He still doesn't know how much of his crew is comprised of firebenders. He doesn't know if _any_ of them are firebenders.

Maybe real firebenders _don't_ need steel. Zuko _does._ He needs his swords and his knives and even his ability to growl and hiss and make noises more suited to a wild raccoon-dog than a prince, because right now it's all the communication he has _left._

He still shrinks from the idea of writing out all his questions for the crew. He'll have to and he knows it and he _needs_ to get used to the idea but not yet. Not- not yet.

The longer he puts it off, the more he can pretend that he _won't_ have to learn to write out anything he wants to say.

Besides. The first time Zuko did try to write anything down, for Uncle, it went about as well as his firebending has. Between Zuko's shaking hands and his skewed vision and the animal panic that presses in on his brain whenever he thinks of _upsetting Uncle_ he'd barely gotten through a single fearfully scrawled sentence before knocking the inkwell over, obliterating his barely-legible question.

Uncle's never hurt him before. Out of everyone Zuko's ever known, Uncle has _never_ hurt him. Not even to make him better, or because Azula had asked him to, or by leaving and never coming back, or-

Uncle Iroh has never hurt him.

Uncle Iroh _still_ hasn't hurt him, even though Zuko _did_ upset him.

(But Uncle watched, he watched with everyone else, he watched and didn't- didn't _do_ anything- but. But Iroh had said not to speak. It was the one thing he'd told Zuko not to do and Zuko had gone and done it immediately.

He can't figure out why Uncle came with him at all. He'd _just_ had proof of how badly Zuko always fails to follow instructions, all Zuko had to do was _not speak_ and he couldn't even do that right).

Zuko doesn't _really_ want to upset Uncle. It's just- he doesn't know how _not_ to. He doesn't know where Uncle's lines are, not really, not yet. Uncle had never been half as strict with Lu Ten as even Zuko's less demanding teachers had been with him, but Zuko's not Lu Ten, even if he's sometimes not entirely sure that Uncle remembers that.

Lu Ten had been clever, and patient, and _good,_ and all the things that Zuko just _isn't._ All the things Zuko can't be, he's tried and he's tried and all it ever earns him is sharp reprimands and curt remarks that he's still not trying hard enough and Zuko _doesn't know_ how to try any harder.

Uncle's never hurt Zuko before, but Zuko's also never really been _his_ before. No one likes being saddled with Zuko. _Zuko_ doesn't like being stuck with Zuko. 

(And Zuko's not Lu Ten but he's pretty sure he's Uncle's now, if only because Uncle's the only one left in the world that might actually want him).

Zuko doesn't want to try writing again. He can figure something else out, probably, if he can't- if he never-

If his voice doesn't come back soon.

It's not like his shaky script had been all that legible, anyway.

He'd braced himself for anger then but Uncle had only looked sad in a way that made Zuko's guts twist, just before Uncle had told him softly that they'd try again later.

And Zuko had nodded and made his way out of Uncle's cabin and then bolted to his own room, where he curled into his corner with one hand on his knife and shook uselessly for _hours._

Zuko's not surprised when he figures out that's going to be what tonight is like, too. 

Uncle says he won't hurt him but Zuko's used to being lied to. 

He keeps his knife under his pillow and keeps trying to breathe through the miserable knot of anger that surges right back, now that he can't spar to give it somewhere to _go._

Even temporarily sidelined as he is, watching his crew so casually throw knives and insults past each other helps. It helps a surprising amount.

It really shouldn't, but it does. 

Zuko's all snarls and rage and hurt inside and he wants to _fight something_ over it and he wants to shout his anger to the world, and _he can't,_ and he thinks he's starting to figure something out. 

He thinks he's not the only one. 

He's the only one on the ship who's _physically_ prevented from snarling his rage to the sky, but he's not the only one who's _angry.  
_

Zuko's banished and dishonoured. His ship is _not_ a place people strive to be. 

Most people. 

But his crew, _his_ people, the crew that they've ended up with after Uncle and the Lieutenant and the Healer left soldiers on docks and islands and picked up knife-wielding engineers with shaky paperwork in backwater ports- Zuko still doesn't think that they _want_ to be here, specifically, but he's not so sure that they want to be anywhere else, either. 

There are too _many_ people in the hallway spars. 

Takemi threatens people out of the galley with a kind of wicked-looking scimitar that Zuko's never even seen before and that their cook should probably not have. The hawker gains a swift reputation for fighting _very_ dirty and Zuko discovers almost as swiftly that it's because the man _bites_ (which... makes Zuko feel a little better about all his own hissing and growling, honestly). Once when Zuko accidentally treads too silently into the room and forgets to knock or hit something, to try to make some kind of noise, _Healer Kou_ pulls a knife. 

That's... not normal. Even _Zuko_ knows that's not normal. 

Zuko's... not really _supposed_ to know about firebenders going feral, but servants talk, and Zuko's quiet, and as bad as his drive to _hunt_ has gotten since waking on the ship it never really had gone dormant the way it was supposed to. 

So when the servants had started telling each other stories about feral benders, Zuko had stopped creeping after the mouse-shrews in the walls long enough to listen (but not _too_ long, because if he didn't catch the mouse-shrews and relocate them somewhere safer, it would be _Azula_ hunting them next).

Feral firebenders happen. That was the first time Zuko had heard about it, and it had been secondhand gossip at best, but it had been enough for him to tuck the information into the back of his brain and wonder about uneasily for years. He doesn't have anyone he can safely ask about it, but he'd heard the servants say that it happens more to firebenders who struggle with their flames.

He'd looked down at the mouse-shrew perched in his cupped hands, realised he wasn't certain when he'd caught it, and fled back through the walls before he could be caught himself.

Zuko's not a very good firebender.

Zuko has been hunting in one way or another for as long as he can remember. It's never been this _bad_ before, but it's never left him, either. 

If his own drive had never really gone away- he'd always assumed it was _because_ he's not a good firebender, but- but what if there are other benders who live with that instinct, too? 

Too much of the crew is sparring in the hallways. Zuko thinks it might be _all_ of them. 

Not all of them are benders. He knows not all of them are benders. He knows some of them must be, but he still hasn't seen anyone firebending (at least, not around _him,_ and he hates how much relief he feels at that).

Zuko's beginning to wonder if firebenders can drag nonbenders feral _with_ them. He's beginning to wonder if 'feral' actually means something else entirely.

Although if it _doesn't_ \- then for a prince, _Zuko's_ going feral awfully fast.

(For a too-young Navy recruit who's already suffered a life-changing injury, an injury that would end any common soldier's career, Zuko's actually coping fairly well, but that isn't how he thinks of himself. He doesn't know then that many of the soldiers around him _have_ begun to think of him like that).

* * *

A few nights after that disastrous fight on the deck, restless and hurting and still banned from sparring, Zuko crams himself into the corner of his bunk in the corner of his room. He stares bitterly down at his hands, cracked and bloody now from constant exposure to the sea air, and tries again to talk. Hisses again. Growls under his breath in reaction, winces at the growl, and _tries again._

Not enough that he's been burned and banished, discarded like an untrained and unwanted pet. Not enough that everyone- everyone _saw_ , there was a crowd and Azula and Zhao had been _smiling_ and _everyone saw-_

( _that's_ what had him so upset out on the deck, everyone _saw_ )

Uncle looked away. Zuko hadn't actually known that at first, but he listens and he's quiet and he overhears a lot, and Uncle looked away and Zuko doesn't want to think about that.

He doesn't really want to think about how he has to live with _sounding_ like a stray pygmy puma now, either, but it's not like it's something he can ignore.

The healer _still_ doesn't know if it's permanent. No one knows if it's permanent. If Zuko's lucky, it won't be; if he's very lucky, he'll recover relatively quickly.

Zuko's never lucky.

Zuko's never going _home_ and it _hurts,_ it carves a hollow in him that threatens to swallow him whole. He's banished, and Uncle and the crew aren't, and every time he rolls his eyes at Uncle or scowls at Lieutenant Jee some quiet, cringing part of himself is _terrified_ that they're going to realise that and they're going to leave. They're going to leave _him._

Everyone else does.

Zuko knows Father promised a way back, a way home, but... but no one has seen the Avatar in a hundred years. Zuko, partly deaf and half blind and wholly mute and without his fire, isn't likely to be the first to succeed.

But maybe it's not impossible.

It _can't_ be impossible.

Because if it's impossible, then that would mean... that Father doesn't intend...

It can't be impossible.

Even this much later, and he's not sure now how long it's been, Zuko is still having difficulty processing all that being banished really means. It's strange to think that home is right where it's always been, but _he_ can't go back. (Can never go back, the Avatar doesn't _exist_ ).

He'll be killed if he goes back.

That- that had been made _very_ clear to him, by one of the crewmen that Uncle had 'lost' early on. And even if Zuko _did_ somehow make it through the Fire Nation and back to the palace without anyone catching and killing him (like a feral cat-mink, and there's _that_ unlovely comparison again), where would he even _go?_ It isn't as though he's welcome back in the Fire Palace. Not without the Avatar.

Who, again, no one has seen in a _hundred years._

Zuko realises distantly that the churning in his gut and the tight, wild energy thrumming through him aren't normal, aren't a good sign, but he's never actually learned what to _do_ about these attacks- other than slam his eyes shut and hope Azula doesn't hurt him _too_ badly while he can't fight back- so he curls even further back into the corner, jamming his shoulder hard against the wall, seeking some kind of grounding pressure, and hopes that it will let up soon.

(It won't. It never does).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING from the beginning notes, if you jumped down for it: zuko does step purposefully into his sparring partner's slash during a spar, instead of dodging, which he would be fully capable of doing. physical self-harm isn't his actual intent, but it IS the result. 
> 
> chapter lengths on this are likely to vary wildly, since it started as and to a large extent still IS a vent fic 
> 
> also zuko can you have like ONE thought that doesnt feel like it requires italics i am BEGGING you
> 
> listen they dont GOTTA be firebenders to go feral, the last time i was trying to convince someone that no come on i and little brother are _not_ feral it got super undermined by the fact that it got overlapped by little brothers discussion, which consisted of 'oh yeah i was so PROUD i mean caught that bird with my bare hands, i didnt get why they were so mad about- what? we were like five, i dunno, why?' and also by the fact that _i chase things_ and this is not a secret (ive. caught several mice now. and yes, i bite, if youre gonna find yourself in a serious fight why would you not use every possible weapon at hand, of COURSE i bite why would you NOT BITE)
> 
> but also some of that is just that bb zuko has got _no idea_ what c-ptsd is. 
> 
> (related to this: i was a violent ass child and have no real clue where the acceptable level of violence in those spars is) 
> 
> takemi's name is another one taken from persona 5! because i like the shady doctor in that game. 
> 
> zuko not registering pain from that slice is taken from 'i have ideopathic neuropathy and sometimes my coworkers have to inform me ive been bitten and am bleeding and no seriously yoU NEED TO GO TAKE CARE OF THAT, LIKE, _NOW_ -' because hey, apparently there IS some pain that just kinda blurs together! ~~yes i have many scars why do you ask~~
> 
> also i tried to write out some of satori and ayanes backstory just so i knew it but it is now five thousand words long and counting so that is. probably gonna be a chapter somewhere. one that raises the rating bc it is SO much cursing


	3. learned our lessons through the tears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter bc i am having A ROUGH TIME rn, sorry

The prince is.... young.

Logically, Jee's known this for a long time. The prince is thirteen. The prince is a child.

The prince is a _child,_ and half his face is marred by the worst burn that Jee has ever seen, and Jee has been in the Navy for more of his life than he's been out of it. He is not new to burns and battle scars and yet he's never seen a wound this bad that wasn't fatal. 

The prince is too young to be burned and banished. The prince doesn't truly wake up for a matter of several weeks. The crew rotates shifts to help watch him, though never without the General present, and although Jee isn't entirely sure he agrees with his methods he still knows damn well what the General is doing. Excuses and justifications that sound reasonable in the light of day rarely hold up to the reality of watching the kid writhing in pain at night, panting through fever and nightmares. 

That doesn't apply only to the reasons the General gives for having them help watch the prince.

Jee's also seen plenty of training accidents, some of them serious. None of them ever looked like this. 

None of them would have had the General like this- silently furious and intensely mournful by unpredictable turns.

Lieutenant Jee avoids General Iroh as best as he can and wonders silently to himself if this is what the General was like after the loss of his son, too.

His first son, maybe. General Iroh is _here,_ trying to make sure that Prince Zuko _lives,_ and the Fire Lord banished a thirteen year old kid with a possibly mortal injury. The Fire Lord banished _his son_ with a possibly mortal injury- with a _probably_ mortal injury, had the General not been so swift to steal himself a healer. (And Healer Kou was definitely stolen; the man still wears the robes of a palace healer, even though they're all plenty aware by now that if Kou ever returns to the palace he has an astronomically high chance of disappearing under mysterious circumstances). 

Jee's aware his thoughts on the matter of the prince are treason. Jee's even more aware that his assignment to this ship was a bare step up from execution, considering that if the kid _does_ die, it's not the Fire Lord or the Dragon who will be blamed.

They really do come frighteningly close to losing the prince. Jee wouldn't be surprised to learn that the kid's heart had actually stopped a few times, somewhere in there. They take shifts and turns to watch him and the prince cries out wordlessly in his sleep, even though he's silent in his brief moments of lucidity. 

Jee had known the prince's age before he'd ever been recruited to this insane quest, in the same vague way that everyone knows at least a little bit about the royal family, but he'd never thought-

Agni, Prince Zuko is just a _kid._

And Lieutenant Jee is not terribly used to kids, he might honestly be a pretty terrible uncle (which is beginning to fill him with guilt, watching the way General Iroh worries and frets over his nephew), but he _is_ used to the kind of damage soldiers carry back with them.

The prince- the _kid-_ would never admit he's damaged.

But it takes him weeks to truly wake, and then weeks more to adjust to his vision and hearing loss (and he won't actually _admit_ to those but they all know anyway, there's no _way_ the prince can see out of that eye), and he doesn't firebend and he flinches from other's flames.

And he doesn't talk.

Jee notices before anyone else does, but for the first two days he convinces himself that maybe the prince just doesn't talk around _him._ Jee would like for fewer people to talk to and around him, honestly, so he has no issue with that. It's certainly better than the shouting he'd been expecting, given some of the stories he's heard about the royal family.

But Prince Zuko starts to come on deck more often, and he'll pick someone to hover around and watch intently as they go through their duties, and he's clearly figured out that if he does this long enough then whoever he's picked out will start to teach him what they're doing just to break the silence.

That could be a deliberate strategy. That could be the prince using silence deliberately.

They are not on this ship because their prince is good at _strategy._

Zuko so transparently _wants_ to learn. Zuko clumsily follows after the chosen crew member each day, watching and trying his hand at their responsibilities until he learns them for himself, and Jee's not sure what to think about that because it would be one thing if it was something General Iroh had convinced the prince to do but the General seems just as surprised as the rest of them.

Prince Zuko wants to learn, but he hasn't asked a single question, because he hasn't said a single word.

Jee can't ignore it any longer. He goes to General Iroh. 

Except that then General Iroh _knows_ , and he's too clearly devastated at the realisation, and it's not long before that's _worse_ because up until now no one had actually commented on Prince Zuko's silence. Now, though, now that Iroh knows, there's no more moratorium on speaking of the prince's various injuries and obvious trauma.

Jee himself deliberately loses their first cook and one of their original engineers (they seem to have too many, somehow) in a barfight in some backwater Earth Kingdom port. He doesn't particularly want to know where some of the crew that _Iroh_ 'lost' had ended up.

Before, Jee's sure the prince had been struggling in private, but he'd hidden it well amongst the crew. With such a busy and relatively raucous crew- no one here is here for _good behaviour,_ after all- it had been easy to overlook one silent, scarred kid. Even if he is the prince.

(Jee stopped sending hawks back to the capital even before Zuko woke up. No one has followed up on this. Ozai might have tried to secure more spies, but they were always an afterthought; Jee doubts the Fire Lord cares what his son is doing. Doubts by now that he cares about his _son_ ).

Now Prince Zuko glares at everyone and hunches his shoulders at kind words and gets a wild, trapped look in his eyes whenever he's alone with anyone but General Iroh- and then he starts getting skittish even with Iroh, which is a shame, honestly, because he's only just _stopped_ being so skittish around Iroh.

Jee's seen the prince's behaviour before, but rarely to this level of severity- and before now, Jee had mostly seen it with combat veterans.

They've been told the prince had a training accident.

Jee does not think there had ever been a training accident.

The General is trying so hard to earn the boy's trust and Jee's not too sure yet exactly _why_ the prince doesn't trust, but the too-obvious fear of fire _in a_ _firebender,_ combined with the severity of the burn and the timing of Zuko's banishment, is not painting a pretty picture.

The prince doesn't speak. Without words, it's important to pay close attention to Prince Zuko's body language, and his body language is telling Jee a story he's not sure he's ready to hear.

Prince Zuko flinches away from fire, but with a burn like his that isn't surprising.

Prince Zuko also flinches away from raised voices and raised hands, and that _is_ surprising.

He may be banished now, but Prince Zuko is Fire Nation royalty. It's illegal to lay hands on the prince. Jee wouldn't anyway, the boy is thirteen and terrified, but he could also be executed if he did.

The more time he spends around the kid, the less he thinks he would be.

The only people that law wouldn't apply to are other members of the Royal Family.

There have always been stories from the capital, whispers in the night, but Jee hadn't believed them. He'd suspected they were poor attempts at undermining Fire Lord Ozai's claim to the throne. Surely, if the Fire Prince _had_ been seen sporting injuries, they were from training. It's never been a secret that the Princess was the faster learner, after all. That the Prince lacks prowess in both his firebending and his combat skills. 

And if there were further whispers, that some of the injuries looked far too deliberate- well, Jee doesn't have kids himself, but he knows how some of the other officers treat discipline. Probably the prince was just exaggerating his injuries for effect.

Jee _had_ thought that. Until he actually met his prince. 

His prince who is missing half his face and startles like a stray pygmy puma when anyone moves too quickly. His prince who hasn't said so much as a single word in weeks going on months now and if he's firebending again yet, Jee hasn't seen him.

His prince who doesn't talk and can't trust and wants to learn and is terrified of even benign attention, but doesn't seem to _know_ he's terrified of attention. Who moves like a shadow in the night but doesn't know how to handle what _should_ be basic human kindness. 

(His prince who has poorly hidden scars in the shape of handprints, older by far than the scar that sent him out to sea, but Jee won't learn that for a while yet). 

If anything, the rumours had been _downplayed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i genuinely have no idea how many viewpoints are gonna get tossed into this along the way
> 
> but jee was kinda fun to write


End file.
